Easy Summer Eating

These days, easy is where it's at. Appropriately, two new easy treats have worked their respective ways into my eating routine.

Chia pudding is a perfect pre-workout snack. Well it is for me at least. It's light and hydrating, but I feel satiated without feeling bogged down. As I've recently taken up running and biking, I'm getting more exercise than I thought was possible. The issue here is that I really like to come home from work and eat cookies, cupcakes, or whatever treat I've baked for the week.

Those are a less perfect pre-workout snack, but they are a perfect dessert. Enter National Hemp History Week and the easiest chocolate chia pudding ever. The week kicked off on May 17th, and of course, hemp products were doing promotional sales. I snagged some chocolate hemp milk and the rest is pretty obvious.

This isn't even a recipe, it's just three things in a dish:

2 tbsp Chia Seeds
1/2 cup Chocolate Hemp Milk
As many sliced strawberries as you can stand

Let soak 30 mins or over night, top with strawberries in the morning (or et them soak too) and you'll have some of the best chocolate chia dessert workout pudding ever. Of course, the variations with fruit and nut butters are endless.



My other new fascination is Overnight Oats. I've read about them and was honestly a little grossed out. However, I went camping on a very hot weekend, and decided they weren't a bad option for easy camping food. I've since determined it's an excellent and filling quick breakfast.

I first encountered the idea at Oh She Glows!, and I used a hybrid of her recipe and her inspiration recipe. I've since found this list of recipes for them. I won't reprint them here, as I don't have permission, but once I come up with my own ideas, I'll follow up.

So far, I really like the hot cereal mix I have around the house, vanilla coconut yogurt, almond milk, cinnamon, chia, a mashed banana, and peanut butter in the morning. I'm thinking of adding wheat germ in the future too.

A few tips:
-Make a half serving the first time. Seriously, it's a pretty big serving and I'm struggling to finish mine this morning. Plus, if you hate it, it's less to waste.
-You don't need the chia seeds. In fact all you really need is liquid and cereal grains, so don't hesitate to make omissions and substitutions.
-You can use whatever hot cereal mix you have on hand.
-The texture is weird to me right out of the fridge, but once it gets to room temperature, I'm happy.
-Peanut butter is a great topping.
-Experiment and have fun!

I've begun preparations for bike commuting to work and I have all kinds of opinions on why it's an important endeavor to me as a vegan. Also, I have several weeks of CSA to post about (thanks to Vegan Burnout for reminding me and inspiring me for greens), so stay tuned!

No Chia Pet Puns Here

Last week I tried chia seed pudding for the first time ever. It's one of those rare foods that falls nicely into the delicious, but kind of gross category. Texture is usually the make or break quality for me and chia seeds came dangerously close to the breaking point. Chia seeds absorb a ridiculous amount (I've heard between 9 and 30 times their weight/volume) of liquid when soaked. They then become a gel. It's kind of strange/awful looking. I immediately thought of frog's eggs.

But don't let that put you off. I really enjoyed the pudding I made, even though there was so much of it, it took me a good 3 hours to eat. The texture was a lot like tapioca, something I detest, but it was still tasty enough to enjoy. It left me satiated, but not full-feeling. It's probably ace as far as pre-workout snacks go.

I saw a lot of recipes out there, but I just followed the basic formula (1 cup liquid + 1/4 cup chia seeds) and added what I thought might taste good. I guess this is a good stepping stone to recipe creation. Chia pudding made for a light and refreshing breakfast and it has endless possibilities in terms of fruit, liquid, and flavors to try. I think it will be a nice option to alternate with my green smoothie breakfasts.



Here are a variations I came up with:

Basic Chia Pudding
1 cup Almond Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 Banana, chopped
2 Dates, chopped
1 pinch Salt
1/4 cup Chia Seeds

Throw the milk, vanilla, banana, dates, and salt into the food processor and mix until smooth.

Add the chia seeds, stir, let sit 30 minutes. Stir again and enjoy, or stick it in the fridge over night (which is what I did). Garnish with fruit, cinnamon, other spices, whatever.

This made for an excellent breakfast that took me the better part of the morning to eat. I felt satiated, but never full. This is probably a good option if you don't like to eat first thing in the morning, but need the energy.

Strawberry Banana Chia Pudding
1 cup Almond Milk
2 tablespoons Vanilla Coconut Creamer
1-1/2 cups Strawberries, chopped
1 Banana, chopped
2 Dates, chopped
1 pinch Salt
1/4 cup Chia Seeds

Throw the milk, creamer, fruit, dates, and salt into the food processor and mix until smooth. Add the chia seeds, stir, let sit 30 minutes. Stir again and enjoy.

This was fantastic and probably my favorite. All of the fruit did a lot to lessen the gelly texture of the chia.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chia Pudding
1 cup Almond Milk
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/2 teaspoon Chocolate Extract
1 table spoon Cacao Powder
2 tablespoons Natural Peanut Butter
1 Banana, chopped
2 Dates, chopped
1 pinch Salt
1/4 cup Chia Seeds

Throw the milk, extracts, cacao, peanut butter, banana, dates, and salt into the food processor and mix until smooth. Add the chia seeds, stir, let sit 30 minutes. Stir again and enjoy

This would be a fantastic dessert.

A few general notes:
I like dates for sweetening purposes. A lot of the recipes I looked at suggested agave and stevia, but dates are the way to go. I chopped the dates until they were nearly a paste, and then soaked them in the almond milk for about half an hour before blending. In the future, I'd like to soak them even longer. They become super soft and it's easier on my little processor.

The recipes above make enough for two big servings, especially when you're adding in a lot of extras. I ate chia pudding up until lunch on the first day. I don't know how well it keeps, so half everything if there's no one around to eat half.

Inspiration, Raw and Otherwise

I had an amazing five-course raw dinner last night at a local restaurant. Visiting the restaurant meant visiting the next-door organic market and coming away with some fun stuff. My dining companions had excellent ideas about food as well. I feel inspired and so there are four creative challenges I hope to overcome as a result of my night out.

Chili-Lime Vinaigrette
The standout of the evening was definitely the Kale Salad with English Peas and Chili-Lime Vinaigrette. I eat kale pretty much everyday as part of my Green Smoothie, and I occasionally enjoy it steamed when I'm looking for a quick side dish, but this leafy green deserves more time as the main event.

Raw Wednesday is creeping up on me, so I may as well give it a go. I'm going to make some changes to the salad itself, but some of the ideas I have (golden raisins) aren't exactly raw. Maybe I'll do two versions.

The real item of interest though was the Chili-Lime Vinaigrette dressing. It reminded me of the Sesame Dressing from The Garden of Vegan. But it had a little kick and was limier (seems so obvious).

So my first challenge is to make my own version of this perfect dressing.

Chia Seeds
I've read all about them, I've eaten them, now I need to do something with them. They were on sale at the market and I've never been able to find them near me, so I seized the opportunity and the green bag and brought home some chia seeds. I'll have to figure out what to do with them and then do it tomorrow. Sounds easy enough.

Chocolate Chili
As we shopped, my mom told me about this chocolate chili recipe she veganized, and then we happened to stumble upon some Taza Chocolate Mexicano. In their latest issue, VegNews raved about it, so it was clearly fate for me to find it that evening. I bought the Vanilla and Chile varieties (all they had) and am looking forward to getting creative, but I think that I will first tackle this chocolate chili thing. It sounds totally revolting. But my palette has come to accept culinary adventures. This might have to wait a bit. I just ordered Viva Vegan!, so I'll have plenty of Latin side dishes to accompany the chili.

Chocolate/Cacao Smoothie
This challenge isn't a direct result of my night out, but it is a result of my growing awareness and knowledge of raw foods. So while I've made many chocolate shakes and smoothies in my life, I want to make one that I'll call raw-inspired. I want to use cacao nibs in it. I'll figure out the other ingredients later, but my focus is to get friendly with cacao. For some reason, it's a bit intimidating, possibly due to some failed attempts at Chocolate Avocado pudding, but I am confident that I can master this ingredient!

In my less immediate future, I'd like to do something cool with kelp noodles too. They were part of the dinner and weird, but good. I also need to use the mochi I bought.

I'll report back on how it all goes!